The Supreme Court agreed Tuesday to decide whether the Clean Water Act can prevent sewage plants from putting waste water into the ground if it flows from there into a river, bay or the ocean.

The case from Hawaii is an important test of the reach of the federal government’s anti-pollution authority.

Environmentalists sued alleging a sewage plant in Maui was discharging treated waste water into the ground and it was flowing underground from there into the Pacific Ocean.

They won before a federal judge and the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, which held that the pollution was subject to federal control because it was the “functional equivalent of a discharge into the navigable water.”

But the Supreme Court agreed to hear an appeal from Hawaii that was backed by the Assn. of California Water Agencies. Their lawyers called the 9th Circuit’s ruling a “radical expansion” of federal authority. If upheld, its approach would extend new federal regulation to water treatment plants across the country, they said.

The Clean Water Act calls for preventing discharge of pollutants into the “navigable waters of the United States.” Water agencies say the law refers only to polluted water flowing directly into streams, rivers and bays, not groundwater.

For more than a decade, the justices have been split over how far the federal government can go to regulate water inside the United States, whether it be wetlands, or, as in this case, groundwater. The court’s conservatives have argued the federal government can only regulate polluted water that flows directly into a river, bay or the ocean. The law forbids discharges of pollutants into “the waters of the United States.”

But environmentalists as well as the court’s liberal justices have said this authority can extend farther inland to prevent pollution that will eventually flow into rivers and bays.

The case, County of Maui vs. Hawaii Wildlife Fund, is scheduled to be heard in the fall.

My question is: I hear a sunscreen is killing the coral in the oceans and I’m wondering what it’s doing to our lakes? Does anyone know?

Britt Wray:

And for answer we go to Dr. Linda Campbell of St. Mary’s University, and because Dr. Campbell is deaf, the voice you’re hearing is that of SMU staff interpreter Ashley Campbell.

Linda Campbell:

My name is Dr. Linda Campbell and I’m here in lovely Halifax Nova Scotia and I’m a professor here at St. Mary’s University and an environmental scientist.

I’m here to answer the question from our listener “does sunscreen cause damage to freshwater lakes similar to the damage done in coral reefs?”

So the short answer yes, but it does look different. The impacts unfortunately of many types of UV filters found in common sunscreen brands really are known to kill the organisms that form coral reefs. And as you know, Hawaii just recently actually banned many types of sunscreen.

Now freshwater lakes are not immune to the impacts from these UV filters similar to coral reefs. And there are two kinds that we are worried about: One is the carbon based UV filters and the other is nano-particulate UV filters, and that’s using zinc and titanium. Both of these types of filters negatively impact algae and fish in lakes.

The damage isn’t as obvious and as visible as the bleaching to coral reefs, but they’re still there and the damages for example include DNA damage, bio-accumulation of harmful chemicals, and lower quality and quantity of food sources at the base of the food web.

It’s easy to find sunscreen brands that contain less harmful components for the ecosystem and they don’t have those nano particulates, or have less harmful UV filters within them.

You can do some research online and look for coral reef friendly sunscreen and then you can find those brands online quite easily and it’s less harmful to the ecosystem.

Britt Wray:

Dr Linda Campbell is an environmental scientist at St Mary’s University in Halifax.

West Hawaii Today; Max Dible, 25 June 2018: Every day cesspools throughout Hawaii send an excess of harmful nutrients pouring into nearshore ocean water and threatening to infiltrate the freshwater drinking supply. Hawaii island is home to tens of thousands of them representing nearly half of the known cesspools used throughout the state. With the deadline of 2050 to shut down every one of them, the State Department of Health has scheduled informational community meetings in both Kailua Kona and Hilo…

…When cesspool seepage intermingles with ground water, it can find its way into aquifer drawn on by the county. This is generally less of a concern at the deep well sites, which can range between 1,000 and 2,000 feet in depth and supply Hawaii island with most of its drinking water…

Enhance your ability to efficiently serve your clients, in a
manner compliant with the new Hawaii Water Quality Rules. Learn
the latest “how to” and best practices for design, plans
review, construction, and post construction stormwater
quality, one year in to implementing the new Water Quality
Rules. The workshop is expected to include staff leaders
from within the City and the design and construction
industry working together to protect our waters.

December: (Kobayashi Comment: This new State of Hawaii website is an excellent example of the fusion of GIS mapping capabilities with water data. I strongly support such efforts and commend the DOH and Clean Water Branch for taking this first step)

HONOLULU — The Hawaii State Department of Health (DOH) Clean Water Branch has developed a newly upgraded website that gives the public access to up-to-date information — integrated with aerial photos from Google maps — to check on the status of the water quality of beaches that may have a surge in bacteria levels or are being impacted by sewage spills. This website is part of a revised statewide beach monitoring and notification system.

The new features and functions of the website, developed in part from a grant from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), were based on feedback from those within the health department as well as external stakeholders. The website is part of an integrated notification system that includes warning signs posted at selected beaches throughout the state.

To coordinate its response to floods, droughts and disease and other water challenges whose political and economic challenges leap borders the Trump Administration submitted the Federal government’s first global water strategy.

Ordered by Congress, the strategy lays out four goals; to increases access to safe drinking water and sanitation, improve water management, protect watersheds from pollution, and prevent conflicts over river, lakes, aquifers that cross political boundaries.

“Safe water and sanitization are fundamental to solving challenges to human health, economic development and peace and security,” the 70 page report states.

(November ) The American Water Works Association Hawai‘i Section and the Hawai‘i Water Environment Association are proud to announce the fifth annual joint conference now known as the Pacific Water Conference at the Hawai‘i Convention Center from February 6 – 8, 2018. Our joint conference committee is hard at work to bring you an exciting, fun, and educational conference.

The Pre-Conference Workshop kicks things off on Tuesday, February 6. The Conference officially opens on Wednesday, February 7 and lasts through Thursday, February 8. Join us at the Convention Center Kamehameha Exhibit Hall I to cheer on this year’s operator competitions featuring HWEA’s Operations Challenge and AWWA’s Pipe Tapping and Top Ops events. Remember to check out the exhibitors showcasing the newest and latest products in the industry. With five technical session tracks to choose from, there’s sure to be one that piques your interest. The conference golf tournament will be held on Friday, February 9 at the Kapolei Golf Course, and the community service event will take place on Saturday, February 10.

HONOLULU, AUG 25, 2017 — The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced an agreement with the owner of two Big Island hardware stores and a commercial property to close four large-capacity cesspools (LCCs) at properties in Naalehu, Kamuela and Hilo, Hawaii. Cesspools can contaminate groundwater, and LCCs have been banned since 2005.

“Replacing these harmful cesspools with modern wastewater treatment systems will protect the Big Island’s drinking water and coastal resources,” said Alexis Strauss, EPA’s Acting Regional Administrator for the Pacific Southwest. “Our goal is to protect Hawaii’s waters by closing all large-capacity cesspools.”

In 2016, EPA found three cesspools during inspections at the Naalehu and Kamuela Housemart Ace Hardware stores, owned by Maui Varieties Investments, Inc. (MVI). MVI also voluntarily disclosed a fourth LCC at a separate commercial property that houses a farm supply store in Hilo.

MVI will be closing the two LCCs serving the Naalehu store and neighboring buildings and replacing the LCCs with wastewater treatment systems approved by the Hawaii Department of Health. The company will be closing the LCC at the Kamuela store and connecting it to a private sewer system. Finally, MVI will close the LCC at the commercial property in Hilo and connect it to the County of Hawaii’s sewer system. MVI will also pay a civil penalty of $134,000.

An LCC is a cesspool that serves multiple residential dwellings or a commercial facility with the capacity to serve 20 or more people per day. Cesspools collect and discharge waterborne pollutants like untreated raw sewage into the ground, where disease-causing pathogens can contaminate groundwater, streams and the ocean. LCCs were banned under the federal Safe Drinking Water Act in April 2005.

Cesspools are used more widely in Hawaii than in any other state, despite the fact that 95 percent of all drinking water in Hawaii comes from groundwater sources. Since the federal LCC ban took effect in 2005, over 3,400 large-capacity cesspools have been closed state-wide, many through voluntary compliance.

“Cesspools, on average, release 55 million gallons of untreated sewage a day into streams, oceans and nearby waterways,” said Marti Townsend, director of Sierra Club of Hawaii. “That’s an extreme amount of untreated raw sewage that people end up swimming in, fishing from and maybe even drinking.”

Health officials say untreated sewage can be linked to skin infections and illnesses like Leptospirosis and Hepatitis A.

“Public health and safety is on the line,” said state Rep. Chris Lee. “We want clean waters, we want clean beaches, and this is a step in that direction.”

The state is offering a $10,000 tax credit to homeowners who convert to septic tanks, aerobic systems, or sewer lines.

May 2017: Michaeal McBride :Kachemak Bay Wilderness Lodge as posted in National Geographic Water Blog.

(Editor’s Note: Mahalo to the folks from Homer, Alaska who helped clean up the seacoast on the Big Island of Hawaii!)

Optimism versus pessimism, how do we find balance between the two when confronting the environmental challenges of today? The older generation has many opportunities to help young people to be optimistic about the future — by encouraging them to take action. The sea offers us inspiration to act (it is la mere in French, our mother). In Hawaii, a small volunteer shoreline cleanup was facilitated by elders, then a group of determined and optimistic young people demonstrated clearly that the one thing we must not do today, is to do nothing.

We were a small group of volunteers; among us, three fun loving Alaskan girls, Tammy, Daisy and Molly. They chose to do this hard work rather than bask on the beach. They were visitors to the Island who got one look at this lovely curve of shore and felt compelled to act. We sought advice from our cheer-leader, resident-grandfather-of -12-carpenter, Robin Reyes who was working nearby. He said though he respected and supported our work, the changing tides and winds will soon cover it with plastic garbage again. It appears that this mid-Pacific hook in the shoreline is acting as a collecting point of detritus from near and far. In spite of that, these hardworking members of the younger generation keep a sense of optimism about the future because they are doing the best they can with what is before them.

Just getting to the cleanup site was an adventure in itself through the dense Polynesian jungle

The fact is that the world’s beaches from Arctic to Antarctic are in many places, or most places, literally paved with plastic detritus.

Scientific American reports in this link that for every foot of shoreline around the world, there are the equivalent of 5 grocery bags of plastic debris, millions of tons of it adrift in the worlds rotating current gyres.

The big stuff is obvious and sometimes removable, but all of it is constantly being broken up into smaller and smaller bits by UV sunlight and the surf. The only thing we must not do in the face of this growing disaster or others like it, is to think it is not our problem. Humanity must take a serious look at the amount of plastic that we are allowing to get into the ocean. We must nurture optimism in our own hearts and the hearts of others, with the belief that anything we do for the common good really matters and does indeed make a difference.

It is shocking to see that this semi-isolated cliff -bracketed boulder beach on the north coast of the Big Island is littered with a nasty assortment of plastic objects large and small. There were many tons of plastic and commercial fishing net debris in this small cove. Volunteer beach combers could only scratch the surface.

There are ugly snarls of commercial fishing trawl net, some sections of which might weigh a ton. Floating nets like these are especially notorious because they attract fish; from little guys to giants who get tangled in them, die, and attract more creatures to these death traps. In a piece-count of commercial Japanese fishing floats we realize that 200’ of beach yielded almost 200 styro-foam floats and scores more, big and small, in a variety of shapes and colors. Friends reported seeing an entire small car washing back and forth in the surf perhaps kept afloat by the four tires. South Point on the opposite side of the Island has seen a lot of debris from the Nuclear Reactor disaster site at Fukushima Japan. The remote Aleutians, and much of Alaska’s coast is littered with this same debris. We wondered what dangers we might face from radiation dealing with these articles? This insidious risk is magnified by knowing that more than one cleaner of beach garbage has been swept away, gone forever with a single rogue wave, indeed, there was a fatality on a nearby island recently. Beach-combers beware !